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Monday, October 15, 2012

You have the option, and it's not one I'm going to choose on your behalf. You may choose to die. But if that is the option you have chosen, don't pretend, be honest about it. There's no shame in answering the call to death so that new life may spring up.

But don't pretend that you're interested in growth if you're not willing to change.

Growth is a kind of change.

When churches change, one of the complaints that ministers often here is that "This doesn't feel like my church anymore." Here's my response:

Was it ever yours to begin with? Or is does the church belong to Jesus Christ?

A church with whom I used to be associated has recently realized that their old members keep getting older, and new members are not replacing them. The result has been that they are trying to grow those young families, they say they want them, and are implementing programs to gather them in.

But they're not willing to actually change anything. It's like they're looking for young families who are already the same as they already are.

Well if you're not attracting new members, perhaps that oppressive sameness is the reason? Each generation has its own needs, its own issues, and for a church to fail to deal with them ignores their existence and doesn't feed the hunger that each group has. You may as well have worship in a different language!

If you are choosing not to change how you do things, you are choosing to die as an institution. Which is absolutely ok. If God is calling you as a church to minister to congregation as it declines and dies, we believe in the resurrection, and if God so wills it, a new church will rise up.

But don't pretend you want new people if you're not willing to change to accommodate them. The holy spirit is active in every time and place, and "that's the way we've always done it" is not a good enough reason.

Monday, October 8, 2012

I had the great privilege this weekend to watch a newly ordained minister preside over the sacrament of the Lord's Supper for the first time. It was, as my generation would say, totally awesome.

I was at the Calvin Center for their annual Middle School conference, the topic of which was bullying. Our keynoter, a long time friend of mine, was also charged with preaching and presiding at table on Sunday.

Oh, and Sunday was world communion Sunday. So there's that.

So we'd been talking all weekend about bullying, covering the obvious topics such as "God still loves you even if bullies don't," and there was a little bit of "if you see bullying, you should intervene." But the hardest thing about which we talked was the bit about loving those who bully you.

And we came to the table together on Sunday.

I was struck by how theologically correct the outdoor worship space at Camp Calvin is, there's a table, a place from which scripture can be read and proclaimed, and a large lake that serves as the visual reminder of the waters of baptism.

The image that has stayed with me though, is one of Christ walking on water, coming to us in the midst of our stormy lives, to sit at table with those who are bullied, and those who bully. That's terribly uncomfortable for those who are victims of bullying, but the bullies themselves will feel a thrill of fear when they too are invited to join.

Because at the table, all of our posturing and posing falls away, and we are left as the forgiven sinners that we are. If that is not a humbling experience, I don't know what is.

It was the pastor's first time presiding, and he served both bullies and their targets with the same words, the same bread, and the same cup.

Because when one member suffers, the whole body suffers. And we come to the table to live that out.

Monday, October 1, 2012

I used the above line in my sermon yesterday. After worship, during the handshaking period, a congregant came up to me and asked me a question:

"What if what we need and we deserve are the same thing?"

My answer: "Then that's what we get."

I used the Guthrie quotation in the context of receiving grace, rather than punishment for our sins. I think that's a large part of the good news of God. We deserve death, but in Jesus Christ, we are given life instead. That grace empowers us to encounter a world that is still tainted by its own limitations and sins. We can go boldly into the world and know that no matter what happens, God will not give up on us. Grace is a huge part of my theology, and I think it's one of the central traits of Christianity.

But I think from time to time we need a wake-up call.

Just as a loving parent will discipline their children, God's loving judgement is visited upon us. Sometimes, what we need is a taste of what we deserve. We receive that wake up call because we need it, and the fact that it's what we deserve is a coincidence, not a cause. In the same passage on which I preached, Jesus asserts that those who lift themselves up will be brought low. My interpretation of that statement is a warning that from time to time, when we forget that we need God, we will find ourselves faced with a harsh reminder.

I'm not sure of the source, but I have heard it said that the task of preaching is to "comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable." It is not my place to judge who is whom, but I think that both are necessary.

I wonder, Does the Church spoil God's children when it preaches only grace, and omits how badly we need it?

Sunday, September 30, 2012

9Jesus told this parable to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous and who looked down on everyone else with disgust. 10Two people went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a Tax-Collector. 11The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself with these words: “God, I thank you that I’m not like everyone else - crooks, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything I receive.” 13But the Tax Collector stood at a distance. He wouldn’t even lift his eyes to look toward heaven. Rather he struck his chest and said, “God, show mercy to me, a sinner.” 14I tell you, this person went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.

This is the word of the Lord

Thanks be to God.

I do not yet know the joys of parenthood, and one of the many of reasons I am somewhat wary of those “joys” is the often repeated truism that children are a grandparent’s revenge.

I have no doubt that my parents will love and adore their future, hypothetical, grandchildren. But I have had that awful curse placed upon me, “One day I hope you have a child that is just like you.”

Now my Dad, when my brother and I were very small, did as many young parents do, and called the ones who raised him for advice on a regular basis. Usually the calls were practical. You see, in addition to having raised two sons, my Grandfather is also a medical doctor, and basically knows everything. But on occasions, my loving and patient father would find himself caught in a battle of wills with myself or my brother, and one such event called for a telephone conversation. It’s a conversation that has passed into legend in our family, the time my Dad called Granddaddy and said, “Daddy, my son is the most stubborn, pertinacious, bull-headed person I have ever met.” There was a long pause, and when my Grandfather replied, it began with a sigh, and ended with the grateful prayer, “There is Justice.”

There is justice. We talk about it as a state of being, a trait of the kingdom of God, and in the context of our Micah passage, something we do. God has shown you what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice... The Lord requires you to do Justice.

Justice, when you get what’s coming to you. Justice is when one acts rightly, one is rewarded, and when one acts wrongly, one is punished. We take it as a law of nature that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When the bullied kid turns around and knocks the bully down with one good punch, that’s justice. Isn’t it? We start off in a place where if we are the victim, that means we get to hit back. We didn’t start this fight, but we will finish it, and justice will prevail.

And from that understanding of our own righteousness, we come to Luke’s gospel. Jesus told this parable to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous. Now if y’all are anything like me, as soon as I read that phrase, someone popped into your head. The other political party, the other sports fans, the other social circle, the other, the other, the other, always the other. They’re the ones who look down on everyone else with disgust. They may have the high ground right now, but Justice is on its way.

Jesus begins his parable, “Two people went up to the temple to pray.” Ooh, two people, I’m in the second group I bet, the one that turns out to be right all along, because I’m one of Jesus’s good followers, a faithful disciple, I’m convinced that I’m going to end up on the right side of these two people: A Pharisee and a Tax Collector.

Now we know that the Pharisee’s don’t often end up as the good guys in the stories Jesus tells, so much so that we’ve forgotten how radical these stories are. The Pharisees are the leaders of the faith community to whom Jesus is preaching. In Luke 13, just a few chapters ago, they warn Jesus about a plot against his life. Pharisees aren’t the bad guys by a long stretch. They are the leaders in maintaining their cultural identity in the face of an occupying Roman government.

The tax collector, on the other hand, is the man who stands between an oppressed Jewish people and the occupying Romans, not as a protector of the people, but as one who benefits from the injustice of the system the Romans have imposed. He’s not a popular guy in town. The tax collector sells out his own people to the powerful empire that has Israel under its thumb. He may not be the bad guy, but for the people to whom Jesus told this parable, the tax collector is certainly working for them.

Y’all, I’m going to be honest. In this story, I’m the Pharisee. Maybe that’s why I want so badly for him to be the good guy. Listen to his prayer: “God I thank you that I’m not like everyone else - crooks, evildoers, adulterers, - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of everything I receive.” He’s thanking God for making him an exceptional example of what a faithful follower of God looks like. What else could I want but to be a model Christian, following Christ’s call to love as we have first been loved? I want to be good. Thank you God for giving me the opportunity to go to school and learn about your Word, Thank you God for putting these people in my life so that I could hear your word speaking through them. Thank you God for not making me a crook, an evildoer, an adulterer. Thank you, God, for helping me to do justice.

Would any of us really pray the opposite? “God, please make me more like that other sinful person.” This Pharisee is grateful to God, which is not a bad place to start, but his gratitude is that he can do justice on his own, without God’s help. I’ve heard so many of our private prayers that are bargains with God. “Oh God, if you’ll heal this person, I’ll never speak badly of others again.” “God, if you get me out of this, I’ll never ask you for anything again.” They’re all variations of the same theme, “God, if you give me grace this time, I promise not to need it quite so badly.” When we pray like this, we are saying to God that we are righteous enough that we can somehow pay God back for what God has done for us. “God, I need you to solve this problem for me, but I can do the rest on my own.” Like a willful child crying out that I can do it, even if I clearly cannot, I walk into this church a Pharisee, wanting to stand on my own two feet. Wanting to be the one who stands against the injustices of the world. Grateful for the opportunity and ability to Do Justice as God requires, wanting to do it all by myself.

But then there’s that other character in this story. The Tax collector is burdened by the oppressive system in which he is a participant. He knows he benefits from the way things are right now, and he knows that his people are suffering, and that he has a hand in it. He is not acting justly, because Justice means that he is no longer on top. He has raised himself up by doing business with those who are occupying the promised land. Justice means that our unrighteous tax collector must fall. Jesus doesn’t deny or excuse the sins of the tax collector. They are still sins. We don’t get any indication that he lives his life differently after he goes to temple to pray. His prayer is simple and heartfelt, “God, show mercy to me, a sinner.” He knows he is not worthy of God’s mercy, he won’t even lift his gaze, but all he has left is the hope that maybe, maybe...

Maybe, as one theologian wrote, “God’s justice gives people not what they deserve, but what they need.”

We do not need to have our righteousness confirmed. We do not need for God to make us happy and fix all our problems. We do not need God to bless us with wealth and power. Because while we may be the Pharisee, wanting to be the one who does the right thing, and wanting to be able to do what God tells us we should do, we are also the Tax Collector. We benefit at the expense of others.

Two complicated characters, the one who does everything right and has convinced himself that he is righteous, and the broken sinner who cannot will himself out of his unjustly won position and knows how badly he needs God’s Grace. Sometimes we’re one, sometimes the other. It’s not cut and dried. It’s not black and white. But it is simple. God’s Grace is what justifies us, not our “righteous living.” God’s grace, as simple as that.

So then do we do nothing? Give nothing? Do we let God’s grace fall upon us without a response? What do you think? God has shown you what is good. God has shown us grace, A grace that we poor sinners need, not the righteous condemnation we so richly deserve. The call to action, the call to “Do Justice” cannot be ignored. To paraphrase James Cone, “What could love possibly mean in an unjust society except the righteous condemnation of everything unjust?”

But the story about my father and Granddaddy didn’t stay with us because Daniel and I were his revenge. The story is important to us because his sigh was colored with a grin that recognized my Dad’s struggle as a new father, and his prayer spoke comforting words that the love we share is stronger even than our stubbornness. There is Justice, and it comes out of the free gift of God’s grace. God is loving, slow to anger, and quick to forgive. God’s justice begins and ends with grace. God’s righteous love is relentlessly transformative, and to resist that transformation is to resist God’s love.

So we start with God’s irresistible grace, given freely to undeserving sinners such as ourselves, and from there we are empowered to act. Not because we are no longer sinners, but because we know that when our feeble attempts to enact God’s justice fail, that God’s grace is there to take up the slack, the little we are able to do only goes to show what God is capable of doing. We lift ourselves up, praying about ourselves with these words, “God, thank you for making me so awesome.” We give money that keeps the lamps in the temple burning, money that goes to feed the poor, we rely on our gifts and abilities to convince ourselves that we are righteous.

And in those moments we find ourselves brought low again, standing at distance, unable to meet the gaze of our loving heavenly father, beating our chest and saying “God, show mercy to me, a sinner.” Having made ourselves low, God lifts us up and transforms our pained groans into hymns of praise. For the justice of the Lord flows down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

As we see God take our fallen efforts and reshape them toward justice, we know that we cannot use the gifts God has given us to buy our way into God’s good graces. It is God’s good Grace that has bought us. And in that grace, we are empowered to do what God has shown us is good: To Do Justice, Love Kindness, and Walk humbly with our God.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

I have long said that if there is a specificity to my calling, I believe it is preaching. In my preaching class at Columbia Theological Seminary, the professors encouraged us to get input on our sermons from as many different sources as possible. This practice serves a two-fold purpose, it guards against our own biases and potential cultural insensitivity, and it gives us new perspectives on the text which makes for better preaching.

So last April, I was preaching on a text that had me stumped. So I decided, as I often do, to ask the internet.

Crowd-Sourcing has been shown time and again to come up with better solutions to almost any problem placed before it. And yet the image people have of sermon writing is that a preacher locks herself in her study for six hours and comes out with a brilliant (or not) sermon ready for Sunday morning. The problem with this model is that only the preacher gets to have that relationship with the text.

I'm not satisfied with that.

I think the body of Christ should all be intimately involved with the scripture that we have held up as a unique and authoritative witness. I want to train people to think about scripture and to relate it to their own lives.

While it is certainly important for me, as a preacher, to maintain that relationship as well and to model that for congregants, the best way to teach this kind of skill is to ask people to do it.

Also, it makes for a better sermon. Because the sermon is not about me. It's about God. And the Holy Spirit, ideally, is moving through me in the preaching moment, and in the sermon writing. But I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit speaks through those around us, so this crowd-sourced exegesis asks for exactly that.

So help my write my sermons. Not because I am out of ideas, but because I firmly believe that you have something to say. Here's a place to say it.

Monday, September 24, 2012

The Pharisee and the tax collector 9Jesus told this parable to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous and who looked on everyone else with disgust. 10"Two people went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself with these words, 'God, I thank you that I'm not like everyone else--crooks, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything I receive.' 13 But the tax collector stood at a distance. He wouldn't even lift his eyes to look toward heaven. Rather, he struck his chest and said, 'God, show mercy to me, a sinner.' 14 I tell you, this person went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up."

Sunday, September 16, 2012

You see, there's this mythology that gets passed around between preachers, stories that either make good sermon illustrations, or are particular to the experience of those who regularly lead worship. As a Pastoral Intern at a church in Tucker, GA, I'm one of those worship-leader types of people.

One of the stories that gets passed around is the tale of of the visiting preacher, who is recognized by the standard preacher and asked to "Bring a Word to us this morning."Invariably, the story stars a preacher who is unprepared and is horrified to have to come up with something brilliant on the spot.

I don't know how often this actually comes up though. I've not seen it happen, mostly because my tradition, called Presbyterian, is not only people of the Word, but also people of the calendar. We've got ourselves scheduled out as far as we can see, texts selected years in advance, sermon titles months in advance, and hymns picked weeks out. So when one walks into a Presbyterian church, one is pretty sure of who is preaching that morning.

Most of the time.

My regular readers will know that this blog has been primarily a repository for my sermons, and a forum for their composition. This post is tangential to that usage. This morning, I preached this sermon for a second (and a third time).

It is fitting that we would call an audible like this during football season, and what enabled me to do it was the fact that having heard the myth of the surprised preacher, I have started storing my sermons on my Kindle. When it became apparent that I might be called on to preach, it was already too late to write a fresh sermon, and there was a time when it may have been appropriate to pull an old sermon out of a file cabinet, or print it off a computer. Having a handful of sermons on my kindle is the technological equivalent of having old sermons stuffed in one's bible, but takes up less space.

So today I took another step into the virtual church, I preached from an e-reader for the first time. What was wonderful is that, true to the nature of the body of Christ, I did not step out over that chasm alone, the Old Testament reader at the early service used an iPad for his reading, and during the second service, a visitor live-tweeted my sermon.

Monday, July 9, 2012

35Later that day, when evening came, Jesus said to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” 36They left the crowd and took him in the boat just as he was. Other boats followed along.

37Gale-force winds arose, and waves crashed against the boat so that the boat was swamped. 38But Jesus was in the rear of the boat, sleeping on a pillow. They woke him up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?”

39He got up and gave orders to the wind, and he said to the lake, “Silence! Be still!” The wind settled down and there was a great calm. 40Jesus asked them, “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?”

41Overcome with awe, they said to each other, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God.

It’s strange to talk about storms when it’s sunny outside. I can reach back to when I was in youth group and picture a day on the boat out on Lake James, near where I grew up. Picturing myself on a boat is no problem. Dave and Morgan can show you pictures of what the sea of Galilee looks like, so I can imagine being there, but it’s strange to think about a sky darkening, violent winds, torrents of rain and flashes of lightning when we look outside our windows at see birds singing, a lazy haze over the parking lot, and great helping of sunshine.

It’s strange to talk about storms when it’s sunny outside.

We’ve all certainly sat through the kind of great thunderstorm of which Mark speaks in this text, they’re a humbling display of the powers of nature, a place where one sees the hand of God in the majesty of creation.

But outside, it’s a bright sunny day with a high of 93 degrees, and man is it humid. But it doesn’t even really look like rain...

On a day like today it’s easy to keep this story of boats and storms out at arms length, to put it in a particular place in history and let it stay there, I have no doubt that Jesus and his followers sailed into some severe weather that evening on the sea of Galilee. But it’s strange to talk about storms when it’s sunny outside.

We can join Jesus in his Sunday afternoon nap, this story takes place after he’s preached a series of parables, and many preachers will tell you that the Sunday afternoon nap is one of the greatest gifts God has given us in this world, and on this lazy sunny day, we can curl up on a pillow for a great nap, but this storm business just doesn’t fit when it’s sunny outside.

Unless you’re dealing with another kind of storm in your own life. Not the kind of storm they tell you about on the news, where a nice suit and a smiling face report facts and describe computer models, but rather the kind of storm we put on our motivational posters, where it’s just a symbol for all the problems we’ve internalized. The storm has become a cliche, unless you’re in the middle of it.

I wonder if the disciples would have told this story to the people they met after Jesus’s earthly ministry ended. I wonder if they would tell it to the head of household who’s finances have dried up and he isn’t sure how he can provide for his family anymore. I wonder if they would tell this story to the mother holding her sick child. I wonder if they would tell it to the student who felt overwhelmed by all his responsibilities. I wonder if they would tell this story to the teenager who was sure she had disappointed her parents, and wasn’t sure if they would still accept her. I wonder if they told this story to the community in crisis, trying to decide how it would maintain its identity in the face of a world that is changing so quickly, or not quickly enough. I wonder what problems we would lift up that would inspire them to tell this story once again...I wonder...

Because when that’s the kind of storm you’re dealing with, then it’s the sunny day that doesn’t fit anymore, and it’s strange to be out in the sun when your storms are so great that your boat is swamped. When you’re in the storm, it doesn’t matter what the weather is like, you don’t want to have that Sunday afternoon nap on the pillow next to Jesus, you want this man to get up and help keep the boat from sinking.

We can echo the disciples voices: “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?” Teacher, we know that you’re still present, we know you’re right here in the boat with us. The wisdom of your parables is still ringing in our ears, even though we don’t yet fully understand. You speak and we struggle to hear it over the sounds of the thunder. We want to stand beside you, but the waves are crashing over the sides of the boat and our feet will not stay under us. Why do you choose now to be silent, sleeping in the midst of a storm that is more than we can bear. We need your instruction now, tell us what to do! You’ve told us how to handle our faith, now how do we handle this boat in the midst of a storm?

There’s a saying, “We’re all in the same boat.” It’s meant to convey that we all struggle through things together, but it also removes the particularity of the things with which we are struggling. I don’t know that I buy that the single mother working two jobs has the same struggle as the young man who is targeted by online bullying. The grandfather who struggles to find a place in a world where he and his closest friends are seeing the decline of their minds and bodies is going through something different than the young woman wondering if perhaps she does not love in the same way her friends do.

Perhaps we are not in the same boat. A congregation as diverse as this one and a church as diverse as the PC(USA) is full of people who see the world differently and interpret what they see based on different values. It’s tempting to think that we’re the only ones who are having to deal with all this mess, that somehow no one else can feel the same as we are feeling. No one else will have to face the problems we have. Especially in a world where the expectation is that one must have all the answers, one must have a handle on all of one’s problems, one must not show any kind of weakness or dependence on others. It’s as though it’s alright to ask for help if and only if you don’t need it.

It’s tempting to feel like we are alone out there in our own little boat, facing an impossible storm, especially when it’s sunny outside, and we feel like nothing can bring us back from our self-imposed separation from those we want to love, whom we want to love us. Perhaps we are not in the same boat. But we’re not brought together by some wooden fishing vessel. Our diverse particular little boats are united by Christ, whom we have followed out onto this sea, and into this storm.

And when our particular boats get swamped, Like the disciples in our scripture lesson, we only know that our master seems to be asleep in the back, either unaware or uncaring that this storm into which we’ve sailed is about to end us, and it’s tempting to think that our boats are either in the worst shape or are in the worst part of the storm, and we’ve got to somehow get by on our own.

But when we left the crowd and took God in the boat just as he was, other boats followed along. They heard the same teaching, they’ve seen the same wonders, and though their boats are different, we know that they’re out there, struggling across the stormy sea of Galilee as well, even though they cannot see our boat or be a part of our crew, we can know that no matter what the storm looks like to them, they are crying out to God just as we are: “Lord, don’t you care that we’re drowning?”

I’ve always pictured Jesus, hearing this question in his own boat, groggily getting up, calming the storm, somewhat grumpily saying to his disciples, “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?” And immediately going back to his pillow and resuming his great nap.

But Jesus was only riding in one of the boats, the other boats wouldn’t have seen everything that happened. As the wind settled down and a great calm came over the lake, they would have looked at one another, then to the other boats, perhaps just in time to catch a glimpse of Jesus turning toward his disciples, maybe they were close enough to hear what he said to them, maybe they were far enough away to recognize who it had to be, that even the wind and the sea obey him. We don’t get that part of the story.

But we can infer that once they crossed the lake they all reached the same shore, and they mingled with the other crews, and each told their own part of the story, each shared their particular experience, and each saw Jesus through the eyes of those around them.

Although we’re in different boats, we’re all in the same storm. It looks different to each of us, and we experience and understand it differently, but more important than that diverse commonality is that we all see Christ’s hands calming that storm, and bringing us safely to the other side, irrespective of our own fears and faiths, our Lord goes through the great storm with us, and through the great calm after it. We see this Jesus differently, just as we saw the storm differently.

This week begins our three week series of exploring what the Bible says about Love, Marriage, and Sex. We will undoubtably find ourselves in different places on a number of issues these weeks, but we will come together all the same, listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit to surprise us in the midst of our disagreement. We cannot stop listening just because we disagree with one another, because that would refute the power of Christ to bring our little boats together, and to hold them safely as we find different ways of navigating across this sea.

We may not be in the same boat, but we are united in Christ, and our comfort in the storm is that we are not alone even while we are drowning. It’s strange talk about storms when it’s sunny outside, but it’s not the weather than unites us. It’s strange to talk about how sunny it is outside in the midst our internalized turmoil, but the storm cannot pull us apart. We know that our timid faith, such as it is, is in the Christ who holds us all together, no matter what boat we’ve put ourselves in, and no storm can shake our inmost calm while to that great rock we are clinging.

Prayer: Great God, we are in a time when it is easy to put ourselves into categories of for and against, of right and wrong. We live in a world that teaches us to order ourselves according to those with whom we agree, but you taught us that in Christ there is no Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free. Our boats are different, but your unifying love for us remains constant. Give us the strength to remember that we are your people, and though we’d rather all of this would settle down, living in the storms is where we can see that even the wind and the sea obey you. Help us to remember that your voice speaks amid the chaos, and that we will reach the shore together, not as identical people, but as a people united in your relentlessly transformative love. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Monday, June 18, 2012

It’s the safe place, those playing the game have set it aside as a state that is outside the rules of the game, where the person who is “it” can’t get to you. A place where the slower ones among us can stop to catch our breath, and those who are more daring can venture farther and farther away, tempting the “it” person after them, only to dash back to whatever tree or post has been designated as the inviolable safe zone.

In baseball, the rules about bases are more prescribed, only one person on a base at a time, you have to go through them in a specific order, and you can’t pass someone on your team.

But the concept is the same, as long as you’re touching this bag, you’re safe. Everything else is just an incentive to get off of the base so the defense has a chance to get you.

Like so much of what happens in our schoolyard days, we never really grow out of these bases. They just get more complex. Rather than just picking whatever landmark catches our attention, we build houses, offices, buy fancy cars, or just lay claim to a particular booth at our favorite restaurant. Because, Hey, if we lived here, we’d be home by now.

Paul, though, puts us into a tent. And like our schoolyard bases, the only thing that keeps us safe in this tent is that we’ve all agreed to pretend that there is more between us and the chaotic world from which we’re retreating than such a thin piece of fabric. If you tag me when I’m already on base, you don’t understand the game. If you come into my tent, then you’re not playing right. But the reality is that our tents can collapse in on us with no warning, because they are held up only by what we have said at recess.

But as Christians, we don’t have to be afraid of that. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Now that sounds like some sort of divine homeless shelter that we can tap into when our camping trip goes horribly awry. Many Americans see God in exactly that light too, as an emergency shelter when we can’t handle things on our own. I see the situation differently, largely because of the next verse. “In this tent we groan, longing to be clothed in our heavenly dwelling.”

That groan makes all the difference. It’s a groan of anticipation, of longing for something that is already here, but is not yet apparent. It’s the same groaning in which the whole of creation joins as we suffer together in the birth pangs of the age of the Spirit, the new creation that Christ has ushered in for us. We’re waiting for that birth to be completed, and Paul, in a mixed metaphor that makes this English Major cringe, gives voice to our desire to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness so that we do not have to stand on our own, because all we have is our own naked limited selves and this crude tent we have fashioned out of our own abilities. We groan because even though we live here, we thought we’d be home by now.

So we continue to live here, in this earthly tent, because it’s what we’ve got. It’s a temporary dwelling, and our mistake is only when we put our trust in it and ignore its expiration date. But that which is mortal will be swallowed up by life, and the one who has prepared us for this very thing is God, and God’s continuing presence through the power of the Holy Spirit is our guarantee, or as one translation put it, our “down payment” on this new home that God has built for us.

All of our earthy efforts to build up some fantastic building for ourselves are just making a fancier tent. It’s a place where we can yell “base,” but its comfort is fading, because this is not our true home, we don’t fit here, but we know where we belong. “So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.”

That verse is troublesome. We want to be able to do both, to somehow be able to experience God in a real way, but that very desire also captures the heart of being created in the image of God and walking on this earth as a human being. Walking, Paul says, by faith, not by sight. We can walk with our God, and be assured of her nurturing love, and feel his protecting presence around us. But there is a degree of separation while we are at home in the body. We feel the presence, we know God is intimately and continually involved in creation, but it’s not the same as being able to know God the same way God knows us. A divide exists because we are human, and limited by nature. So we long for unity with God, even while we are at home in the body.

This body, which is not just our flesh, but all that we are, is our home because we remain a people who are redeemed and claimed by God, but who have not seen the whole of the kingdom of God. We can see the kingdom, and the face of God, but in a mirror, dimly, and we move in faith because we are confident that one day we will see face to face. Yes, we have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord, where we can know the fullness of God’s love and be truly whole, as has always been intended for us. We do not belong to this world, we belong to Christ.

But we still live in this world, a world that so badly needs the savior that God has already lovingly given to us, a world that stubbornly refuses to admit that need. For the time being, we reside in this world, living in tents while we await the transition to our home in the Kingdom of Heaven. So whether we are at home or away, we must make it our aim to please God. Because we are the body of Christ, all of us and each of us. We are representatives of Christ to this world, sent to faithfully embody the gospel in a world that thinks it’s already living the good life, even if it doesn’t look too well.

We see our home here, and we know that all too often it doesn’t feel like the place of comfort, love, good feelings, and acceptance that we want it to be. It’s a world where we are separated from our Lord, and like so many families that have gone through a separation, a divorce, or a death, we have to learn how to be a family when we cannot be with those whom we love, and those who love us. We once knew Christ from a human point of view, but we know him no longer in that way. We cannot go back to the way things were, but we can move forward in faith knowing that something new and beautiful is already being created for us. So we look forward to the day when our home can be made whole again, even though we do not know what that will look like.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view. Our world has changed, and we also are different, because of God’s action in Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We know that this world does not have the final hold on us, and that the limits of our abilities do not limit what God is already doing in the new creation.

It’s in accordance with the prophecy we read in Isaiah that God’s new creation is coming to fruition. While this world where we are encamped is full of brokenness, God is creating a new heaven and new earth. Anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new! The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. As people who belong to Christ, we are a part of that new heaven and new earth. We are no longer held back by any of the things that we used to oppress ourselves and one another. All of this freedom, all of this new creation, all of the joy and delight of which Isaiah speaks, all of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

We know that in spite of all of the running around, all the stuff we create for ourselves is just a game of tag. It matters to those who are playing, but when the game ends, both the “it” and the rest are welcome in each other’s homes. God has set aside a home for us, a place from which we can explore new things, new possibilities, freed from the fear of having to earn our place in the world. The Lord is our home, and that same Christ that we claim as the center of our lives answers us before we can call out, and while we are yet speaking, God hears.

They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

That’s the image of a world that is redeemed. We no longer need to set aside a “base” for ourselves, because all of creation will be brought together in peace. We’ll be at home with our Lord once again. We know that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, going down to a world that was fallen so that it could be lifted up again, elevated to be with God because God has declared it so, not counting their trespasses against them. We know that we are not our own, and we do not belong to this world, but rather we belong to God, and are fellow heirs of the kingdom with Christ Jesus our Lord.

And this message of reconciliation is entrusted to us. Not just Paul and his followers in Corinth, us. Not just those of us who are called to sit in the front and lead worship, all of us. Not just those of us who serve on committees, or who volunteer, not just this particular congregation, but the whole of the Body of Christ. We groan in our tents because we know that we do not belong there, we have been reconciled to Christ and we cannot go back to the way things used to be. Isaiah message of a new creation, Paul’s message of a reconciling Christ, that message is entrusted to us.

So we are ambassadors for Christ. We don’t have a higher rank in heaven, we don’t get any special treatment on earth, the opposite is often true. We are ambassadors in a foreign land, and we are easy to ignore, because the world does not even know that they need to hear us.

But as Christ’s ambassadors, we don’t need to be effective, because we know that God will effect any and all change. We just need to tell our story. That for our sake God caused the one who didn’t know sin to be sin for our sake so that through him we could become the righteousness of God. The story is that we do not need to be righteous, we belong to Christ, and God will stop at nothing to be reconciled to us, to be with us in the heights of our joys and the depths of our sorrows. Home is not where we are insulated from our suffering, home is where we can engage with everything that is going on in our lives and know that we are still loved, and that we don’t have to be afraid.

We don’t have to be afraid because God is our home, God who is the giver and renewer of life. All we do we do out of gratitude for what God has done for us, in simply making a space for us to be at home with one another and with God. Those of us who are slower can catch our breath, those of us who are more daring can venture farther out and explore all of creation, and we are all secure in the knowledge that our heavenly father is waiting for us, with a loving smile, when we turn back toward home again.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

1For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling - 3if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. 4For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

6So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are it home in the body we are away from the Lord - 7for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10For all of us must appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.

11Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences. 12We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. 13For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

16From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view, even though we once know Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Acts 1:1-11Theophilus, the first scroll I wrote concerned everything Jesus did and taught from the beginning, right up to the day when he was taken up into heaven. Before he was taken up, working in the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus instructed the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed them that he was alive with many convincing proofs. He appeared to them over a period of forty days, speaking to them about God’s kingdom. While they were eating together, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised. He said, “This is what you have heard from me: John baptized you with water, but in only a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

As a result, those who had gathered together asked Jesus, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?”

Jesus replied, “It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. Rather, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going away and as they were staring toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them. They said, “Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven.”

This is the Word of the Lord,Thanks be to God

Why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? What do you see, Galileans? Are you staring into heaven with the hopes that you’ll be the first to see the future when it arrives? What do you see when you stare into heaven as your Lord is lifted up? What do you see?

Perhaps you see the story of what Jesus did and taught from the beginning. The story of a birth heralded first by the armies of heaven and then by the poor shepherds tending their flocks by night. The story of the boy who sat in the temple amazing his elders with wisdom beyond his years, while his mother worried about him a day’s journey away. What do you see?

Perhaps you see parables, sermons, and wisdom. Perhaps you see deeds of power, the lame leap, the blind see, the deaf hear, and the unclean made whole.

Perhaps you see a journey to Jerusalem, where if the disciples were silent, the stones would shout. Perhaps you see the people around you are proclaiming all the wonders you have seen, and that truly God is here in this place.Perhaps you see your Master being taken away from you once again, just as he was by the crowds in Jerusalem. True, this time he is not being taken away from you to be killed, this time he is being raised up, as we say in our creed, to sit at the right hand of God, the father almighty, but that doesn’t make him any less gone when you’re used to being able to see him and touch him. Feeling a spiritual presence is very different than having a physical one with which you can interact. He’s been taken up, and it’s not the same anymore.

This Galilean sees the past three years of his life when he travelled throughout the country with Jesus, watching him preach and teach and heal people. Three years, and each of them as transformative as the last! At the end of it, they took him away and executed him. By then, though, he was no longer just a teacher, he was also a dear friend, and they took him away and killed him and this Galilean could not bear to watch, and now he is being lifted up again, and in a new way. So he stands there, staring into heaven, because he has to watch.

What do you see?

Another Galilean sees that after they executed this innocent man, who they knew, they knew had done nothing wrong, they buried him in a tomb, and rolled a stone in front of it to seal it. She sees that when she came to the tomb, it was empty, and two men stood in front of it telling here that her Lord was not among the dead, but was among the living! She sees that he is risen, and that for the past forty days he has been with them again. She sees that he has not survived the cross, but vanquished and reclaimed it, taking the symbol of governmental retribution and transforming it into divine hope. She sees that he has returned from the grave, and now he is being taken away again. We are lost without you, Jesus, why are you going away again? So she stands there staring into heaven, wondering what she will do now that he is gone again.

What do you see?

A third Galilean sees the imminent return of our Lord.

One can almost hear it, it’s as though the great stage has been reset, waiting for another showing of the grand play of our redemption. “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven.”

We’re about to see the kingdom be ushered in, right? Isn’t that what these two white-robed men are saying? He went up in a cloud, we just watched it happen, so we’re going to see him come back down in a cloud too. We can plan on that, it’s going to happen. The kingdom of God is at hand! We’re supposed to wait in Jerusalem for this Holy Spirit thing to come to us and then we’ll be able to tell Jerusalem, all of Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth that Jesus is the Lord, and he’s coming back to restore the kingdom!

What do you see while you’re standing there, staring at a cloud that took your Lord, your Teacher, your Friend away from you? Do you see that he is still with you? Do you see that he is absent? What do you see?

Galileans, do you see Jerusalem? How about Judea and Samaria? Do you see the whole of the earth? Because the Holy Spirit is coming, and then we shall be witnesses to God, having been given all that we need. We don’t have to pretend that we understood everything that Jesus said and did, although more understanding may come with time. We don’t have to know how everything worked in this story in which we are living, we just have to witness to Jerusalem, and to Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth, telling all that we have seen our Lord do for us, and for all that exists. So what do you see, Galilean, when you stand there staring up into heaven?

The eyes of the Galileans could only see a cloud that had taken their Lord away, but they didn’t need their eyes to see what they had known. Neither do we need to have seen with our eyes, because there’s just a cloud now Jesus is no longer in sight, but we know that those who have gone before us, and those who are here now, and those who have not yet even begun to look, we know that they too will witness God’s action in the world. What do you see? What is your witness?

When you see it, how will you proclaim it? What manner of witness have you been called to be?

I see a woman who knows a preacher by his voice alone, who lays her hands upon him and blesses him, giving him a moment of clarity of purpose that is not easily equalled. She’s not the kind of witness that is called to be the dramatic prophetic voice, speaking strong words that shift rulers on their thrones. But she has experienced God in a real way, and refuses to let it pass without sharing it.

I see a child playing in a flower bed, getting new Easter clothes covered in dirt, but the call of the world that is created by God and called good is so strong that she has to be in the midst of it, loving the flowers, and the singing birds, and the feel of soil between her fingers. Never mind the stains, God’s creation is beautiful and needs to be enjoyed, even if it means the clothes we have bought for ourselves are no longer pristine, they become holy through playing in the dirt.

There’s an idea about what a witness is, that somehow it’s the powerful preacher who saves souls wherever she goes, or the kind and gentle soul who brings comfort to those around him in times of strife, and these are certainly some of the witnesses to whom Jesus was talking, but they are not the only molds out of which a witness can emerge. Far too often we hear the call to witness, and we try to fit those forms around the voice God has given us, around the unique thing that we see, and the unique way in which see it.

Because we are called to witness not because we have seen it all and can explain it, but because God wants each particular individual disciple to tell the story the way they experienced it. Why are you standing here staring into heaven, Galilean? What do you see?

When I was in high school, my English teacher, Tim Fossett, passed around a poem by Walt Whitman, it read:

O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,Of myself, forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest of me intertwined,The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer:

That you are here - that life exists and identity,That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

What do you see when you look at the fallenness of the world around us? What do you see when the whole of creation groans with the birth pangs of the age of the Spirit? What do you see when you find your self crying out “What good amid these, O me, O life?”

I see that it would have been easier for Jesus to have just restored the kingdom right then and there. I see it would have been easier for the plodding and sordid crowds around me to be lifted up and made whole again, I see eyes that vainly crave the light, I see myself reproaching myself out of my own sinfulness. I cannot help but question this world that is already redeemed, but not yet fully healed.

And though I am not its source, I see an answer:

Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? You are here - because of Jesus’s victory, life exists and identity. This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven. The powerful play goes on, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses, and you may contribute a verse, because you have received power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you to do so. You, not what you imagine you should be, but your honest voice, witnessing to Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, to all Judea and Samaria, and even to the end of the earth.

What do you see when your opportunity to contribute that verse comes to you? What will your verse say? Though we will witness from as many perspectives as there are Christians and more, though our voices will not always sing the same tune, our hands will not always paint the same picture, our bodies do not always dance the same steps, our words will not always weave the same poetry, we all still belong to the same Lord, this Jesus, who was taken up from us into heaven, and we will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, and with it we will be witnesses.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Theophilus, the first scroll I wrote concerned everything Jesus did and taught from the beginning,
right up to the day when he was taken up into heaven. Before he was
taken up, working in the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus instructed the
apostles he had chosen.
After his suffering, he showed them that he was alive with many
convincing proofs. He appeared to them over a period of forty days,
speaking to them about God’s kingdom.
While they were eating together, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised. He said,
“
This is what you heard from me:
John baptized with water, but in only a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
”

As a result, those who had gathered together asked Jesus,
“
Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?
”

Jesus replied,
“
It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority.
Rather, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and
to the end of the earth.
”

After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
While he was going away and as they were staring toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them.
They said,
“
Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? This Jesus,
who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that
you saw him go into heaven.
”

Sunday, April 22, 2012

22Say to the House of Israel: Thus said the LORD GOD: Not for your sake will I act, O House of Israel, but for My holy name, which you have caused to be profaned among the nations to which you have come. 23I will sanctify My great name which has been profaned among the nations - among whom you have caused it to be profaned. And the nations shall know that I am the LORD - declares the LORD GOD - when I manifest my holiness before their eyes through you. 24I will take you from among the nations and gather you from all the countries, and I will bring you back to your own land. 25I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean: I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your fetishes. 26And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit into you: I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh; 27and I will put My spirit into you. Thus I will cause you to follow My laws and faithfully to observe My rules. 28Then you shall dwell in the land which I have given to your fathers; and you shall be my people and I will be your God.

29And when I have delivered you from all your uncleanness, I will summon the grain and make it abundant, and I will not bring famine upon you. 30I will make the fruit of your trees and the crops of your fields abundant, so that you shall never again be humiliated before the nations because of famine. 31Then you shall recall your evil ways and your base conduct, and you shall loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abhorrent practices. 32Not for your sake will I act - declares the LORD GOD - take good note! Be ashamed and humiliated because of your ways, O House of Israel!

33Thus said the LORD GOD: When I have cleansed you of all your iniquities, I will people your settlements, and the ruined places shall be rebuilt; 34 and the desolate land, after lying waste in the sight of every passerby, shall again be tilled. 35And men shall say, “That land, once desolate, has become like the garden of Eden; and the cities, once ruined, desolate, and ravaged, are now populated and fortified.” 36And the nations that are left around you shall know that I the LORD have rebuilt the ravaged places and replanted the desolate land. I the LORD have spoken and will act.

37Thus said the Lord God: Moreover, in this I will respond to the House of Israel and act for their sake: I will multiply their people like sheep. 38As Jerusalem is filled with sacrificial sheep during her festivals, so shall the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. And they shall know that I am the LORD.

This is the Word of The Lord
Thanks Be to God

This text belongs to a people in exile. It belongs to those who have seen their buildings crumble, the crops burned, their people taken captive. This text belongs to those who are scattered and have no home. This text belongs to Lent’s not yet, and yet it has made its way into the already of Easter.

It’s found its way here because even though the women who went to the tomb have already seen the Lord, and even though the travelers on the Emmaus road have already dined with Christ, we are still living in an exile of our own making, waiting for God to establish the Kingdom here on earth. And Ezekiel’s prophesy concerning the restoration of the kingdom has not yet happened, and so it belongs to us.

Here I am, a young preacher. I read this text, and feel called to preach on it, and I want the sermon to be good. I mean, real good. I want to deliver the kind of sermons I’ve read in my literature courses, beautifully composed works of literature that testify to where God is acting in the world. I want to deliver sermons that stick with you for the long term. I’m sure that whatever it is that is important to us is something we want to be good at. We want to look good for our peers.

For me it’s preaching, but for others it may be playing bridge, or chess, or cooking. Or writing, or music, or any number of the other talents with which God has graced us. We want to be good. My struggle is: do I want to do this because I want to bring glory to the God who gave me these gifts, or do I want it for my own sake.

Truth is, my answer changes back and forth depending on the day you ask me. My full name is Joseph William Taber IV, and that name comes with a long and rich heritage, but this text tells me that the focus is not about the greatness of my name, or my Dad’s, or Grandaddy’s, or Pappy’s, or any name I pass on to my eventual son, hypothetical being that he is. But while we are busy trying to build ourselves up, God speaks. “Not for your sake will I act, O House of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have caused to be profaned among the nations to which you have come.”

I think the way we profane the name is by assuming that we somehow have a claim on God, and this passage refutes that. Our prayers are not opportunities to grab God like a child who won’t listen and lay down what we think the law should be. The image itself is preposterous, but it’s how many of us approach God. The Lion of Judah is not, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis, a tame lion. So God tells us that we are going to be restored from our exile, brought into Jerusalem from the wilderness, but makes a point that we are not being made holy again out of our own deserving. God is doing this because we’re making God look bad.

So God sends us into an exile of our own making, and we respond by trying to dig ourselves out. We maintain the idolatrous idea that if we got ourselves into this mess, we can get ourselves out. So our response is to do the same thing again. We haven’t learned, we only barely remember that this is what got us unto this mess in the first place. So our continued attempt at self-mastery in exile continues to profane God’s holy name, just as it did in Israel. Something’s got to change, and we have proven ourselves unwilling or unable to do it. So God promises a new beginning to us, for his name’s sake.

The language of this text is full of rich imagery of restoration and rebirth. But it is not for our sake that the restoration and rebirth occurs. It is not for our sake that we are given wealth, and talents, or called to this holy task. God is doing these things so that all the world will know that the LORD is God. Because when we seek to make ourselves look good, we have fooled ourselves into thinking that we are our own masters. But we are not our own, we belong to God.

The desire to be our own master is one of the many things we share with Israel, and both we and Israel go into exile on account of it. Israel’s desire to be its own master led it to abandon the instructions given to them by God to set them apart from the rest of the world. Our desire to be our own masters leads us to try and fill this text with what we want it to say, so that we don’t have to read what it actually says. We look at this strange text and have problems with it. We want God to act because God loves us, because we’re special to God. But this text tells us that “Not for your sake will I act, O house of Israel, but for my Holy name.”

That’s the problem, isn’t it. God acts for Godself, not for our sake. Preacher that I am, I asked myself “How do I take God acting for the sake of God’s holy name and use it to preach the Gospel?” To me, the rest of the passage is specifics on how that will be accomplished, and much of the first draft of my sermon was concerned with justifying this highly contextual language into our own place and time.

But the text doesn’t need to be justified, we already confessed that it was the Word of the Lord, and therefore it matters to us, just as God’s reputation matters to God. But we are compelled by this passage to move a little more slowly past our problems. “Be ashamed and humiliated because of your ways, O House of Israel.” Though this passage immediately promises a restoration, the whole of this text is wrapped up in how we once again become holy.

We’ve got to remember that God has to be the focus. When I did all of my exegetical work, all of my theological thinking, it was because I wanted to write a good sermon. I wanted to impress my colleagues, I wanted to impress my friends, I wanted to impress ya’ll here. And even though I had read the text a dozen times, and worked on it for many hours, I had not internalized it, and I hadn’t let it work on me. I wrote brilliant thoughts and beautiful lines all about why we didn’t want to deal with this text. I tried to force what I was thinking into a form that had worked for me before, and no matter how long I worked and thought and puffed on my theologian’s pipe I could not make my thoughts fit inside this text. Because this text was already full of its own meaning, and I was learning that the hard way.

That restoration doesn’t happen because of us. Our actions haven’t changed the way God looks at us, instead we’ve made God look bad. The peoples of the world look at us, hear what we say, see what we do, and we have represented a church full of hypocrites. Seeing how the world responds to God’s action and God’s people, God chooses to act in a new way.

God certainly doesn’t need our approval, God isn’t feeding some ego trip where the peoples of the world validate God’s existence. God is God, and does not depend on us. But the holiness of God matters because God refuses to disengage from creation. God does not make a habit of ignoring what is going on in our lives, even when it is offensive to God’s nature. Instead, because God insists on being in relationship with what God has created, God gathers us out of our exile and brings us back to where we belong. For us, a shift in our own mindset. For our spiritual ancestors, a shift in the political and physical reality.

There’s a shift at the end of the scripture too. After hearing time and time again that it is not for our sake that God will restore us to the kingdom, God says “In this I will respond to the House of Israel and act for their sake. I will multiply their people like sheep.” That shift is what attracted me to this passage in the first place. We start with God acting because it is God’s nature to be both holy and involved in creation, and now God is once again acting on our behalf, comparing us to sacrificial sheep, an animal that was set aside as holy, belonging to God, not to those of this world. That’s where this text enters the Easter tale.

At the end of this passage, it is not too far a leap to say that the link between acting for the sake of God’s holy name and our sake is acting for Christ’s sake. Through Christ, we are, as Paul’s letter to the Romans tells us, adopted as God’s children, and are fellow heirs with Christ. God and humanity are united again, brought home from exile among the nations where all we could do was to reflect poorly on the God who claims us.

So now all who see how we are changed will know, as the passage states, that the LORD is God. Because the LORD has spoken and acted. It is for Christ’s sake that in baptism we are sprinkled with clean water and our uncleanness is washed away. It is for Christ’s sake that our iniquities are cleansed and we who had not born fruit are made to produce again. It is for Christ’s sake that our homes and our lives are rebuilt, and that our hollowness is replaced with a fullness of life. It is for Christ’s sake that we are made holy again, set apart as a people of God, to fill God’s kingdom for the celebration to come.

That’s what we celebrate at Easter, and though we have to go through Good Friday to get there, at Easter we are brought back to the kingdom of God, and are set apart as belonging to God so that all the world may know that it is Christ who redeems, and that the LORD is God.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Say to the House of Israel: This said the LORD GOD: Not for your sake will I act, O House of Israel, but for My holy name, which you have caused to be profaned among the nations to which you have come. I will sanctify My great name which has been profaned among the nations - among whom you have caused it to be profaned. And the nations shall know that I am the LORD declares the LORD GOD - when I manifest My holiness before their eyes through you. I will take you from among the nations and gather you from all the countries, and I will bring you back to your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your fetishes. And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit into you: I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh; and I will put My spirit into you. This I will cause you to follow My laws and faithfully to observe My rules. Then you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people and I will be your God.

And when I have delivered you from all your uncleanness, I will summon the grain and make it abundant, and I will not bring famine upon you. I will make the fruit of your trees and the crops of your fields abundant, so that you shall never again be humiliated before the nations because of famine. Then you shall recall your evil ways and your base conduct, and you shall loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abhorrent practices. Not for your sake will I act - declares the LORD GOD - take good note! Be ashamed and humiliated because of your ways, O House of Israel!

Thus said the LORD GOD: When I have cleansed you of all your iniquities, I will people your settlements, and the ruined places shall be rebuilt; and the desolate land, after lying waste in the sight of every passerby, shall again be tilled. And men shall say, "That land, once desolate, has become like the garden of Eden; and the cities, once ruined, desolate, and ravaged, are now populated and fortified." And the nations that are left around you shall know that I the LORD have rebuilt the ravaged places and replanted the desolate land. I the LORD have spoken and will act.

Thus said the LORD GOD: Moreover, in this I will respond to the House of Israel and act for their sake: I will multiply their people like sheep. As Jerusalem is filled with sacrificial sheep during her festivals, so shall the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. And they shall know that I am the LORD.

Wow, that's a long passage. I'd love to hear what y'all think about it! Comment below if you have reactions, they don't have to be profound or theological, they just have to be honest. Thanks so much!